Off-stage she's the bundle of lively, chatty, friendly enthusiasm which makes her such a star on stage.

And she's delighted to be back at the CFT with the BBC Big Band for a night of classics by Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Harry Connick Jnr and many more.

It's an association she has been pleased to develop.

"It all came about through me just moving more in my own shows.

I was working with four-piece and five-piece bands and I was also doing some work for Friday Night Is Music Night with the BBC Concert Orchestra.

"We used to do things from the shows, and I have always been a lover of big bands and jazz.

"In America I have really got into the greats like Cole Porter and Count Basie and Duke Ellington.

"It started to be like a hobby, like a passion, and then somebody said to me that I should really get together with the BBC Big Band.

"We did five concerts – and that was four years ago.

"It's just amazing to perform with these people, actually singing with this great noise going on behind you. A noise. But such a beautiful noise with such volume as well."

She'd had a little foretaste of it in the touring show Hot Shoe Shuffle where she had a couple of numbers at the end.

Generation Game

The BBC Big Band was a fantastic next step – a great new chapter following on from her days with the Generation Game alongside Jim Davidson eight years ago.

"That was great. I was doing musical theatre because that was what I wanted to do. I just heard that the BBC were at a matinee I was doing in rainy old Bournemouth and they asked if I would like to go up for the show.

"I had never done television before, and I was just launched onto the public on a Saturday night.

"It was Jim and Mel. It was an amazing moment, and the other TV shows came along afterwards."

Since then, she has firmly established herself as a singer in both Europe and America. And she has even started writing her own material.

She's got an album's worth.

It's just a question of finding the time to record it. Fortunately that could just be around the corner. This October she's off to Amsterdam for six months.

"Perhaps I might just try to find a recording studio!"

• The BBC Big band reaches worldwide audiences through its many recordings, stage concerts and television specials, as well as gracing BBC Radio 2's Monday night listeners with their own show.
  

• Over the years the Big Band has entertained thousands with such international stars as Tony Bennett, Michael Buble, Michel Legrand, George Benson, Diana Krall and Ray Charles.

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